The thing about books is that I like them. Also: Ice cream.

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Book Review | Until I Find You – John Irving

Overall I was disappointed with this book. Last year I read, and loved, A Prayer for Owen Meany, so when I saw Until I Find Youat the thrift store, I was excited to pick it up.

After having read some reviews of this book it seems that most people had the same thoughts I did. This book was over-written and included entirely too much back story. I felt like Irving created an enormous amount of back story to flesh out his characters and I understand the need to do so, as he needs to understand them. However, every detail he comes up with to create his characters does not need to be included in the book. It was just way, way too much information. Boring subplot after boring subplot. Every single detail of everything that happened was included. He also just kept over telling the shit out of things. As in he’d say something and then immediately tell it another way like the reader is stupid. Put another way, he just kept saying the same thing over and over but slightly re-worded. The point: he’d say one thing several times for no reason.

See what I did there?

I will say that around page 400 I started to enjoy it a lot more. However, that only lasted for a few hundreds pages and then I had to sift through yet another 200 pages that were just dull. I wish that Irving would have put this aside, come back to it a few years later and extracted the core of the story. As it stands, it is not a shining example of Irving’s abilities.

Current reading: The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith – Bill Briggs & Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All – Allan Gurganus